Mary Agnes Tincker

“ But the rein was drawn as involuntarily as a falling person seeks to maintain his equilibrium.
“A l’aide, mon Roi!” she cried, and stretched her hands out, not toward Dylar, but toward the Basilica, showing faint and ghost-like against the western mountains. “A l’aide, mon Dieu!” and lifted her face to heaven.
To a strong, high soul, despair is impossible. However dark the overhanging cloud, it never believes that there is no help. It has felt its own wings in the sunshine, and it knows that somewhere there must be a way for them to lift it out of the storm. ”

“ Black velvet short-clothes were held at the waist by a fringed scarf of black silk. His short jacket of black cloth was like a torero’s in shape. He wore a full white shirt, black stockings and sandals, and a scarlet fez on his dark hair in which the sunshine found an auburn tint.
Tacita gazed at him with eyes as intent as his own. The smileless lips, the brow with its second sight, the pointed beard and faintly bronzed skin—they were the same that she had but an hour or two before engraven on her mind in lines as clear and sharp as those of any antique intaglio. ”

“ I hope, dear, that you and Dylar will marry, and be happy; but it would be presuming in me to ask of your intentions. Peace!”
She went swiftly away before Tacita, astonished, could answer a word.
To be in heaven while yet upon earth, what is it? It is to have a sense of security which extends to the bounds of conception,—and beyond, a sense which no peril can disturb. It is to be steeped in a silent contentment which no words can express. It is to call the bird your sister, and the sun your brother. It is to study how you may serve those whom you have hated. ”

“ No one else might enter save Tacita and Ion as leaders, and the mothers with their infants. Going, they left the place fragrant with their strown myrtle-twigs.
Easter came and went with its blush of roses everywhere, its rose petals mingled with the children’s myrtle on the pavement, roses between the lamps, and roses in the girdles of the people. The bread and wine, on silver trays borne by Dylar and the elders, was set at the foot of the Throne, and after prayer, and music sweet as any heard on earth, the people made their communion as the sun went down, having fasted all day since sunrise. ”

“ Beneath 322that cliff is your El Dorado. Beside it is your Love’s paradise. But farther yet, hemmed in by precipices, is a great black castle of which Castle Dylar is but an offshoot. There dwells a princess held in bonds by a fierce giant. He wishes to marry her, would give her all the gold you see, and make her queen over your paradise; and she will not. If I could pass this wall, if I could thread the labyrinth of gorges leading to that castle, I should find her there, dark and splendid and stately. She is as free and fierce as an Arab. She is as tender as a dove. She looks like a goddess. ”

“ Professor Pearlstein, as president of the council, then asks in a loud voice if any one can show reason why I should not demand your hand in marriage. He waits a moment, then says: ‘Speak now, or forever after hold your peace.’ No sound is heard. I forbid the wind to breathe, the birds to sing!”
“And then?” said Tacita, smiling, as he stopped and flashed the words out fierily.
His eyes softened on her blushing face, and they stood opposite each other under the lacelike branches of an almond-tree where minute points thick upon all the boughs betrayed the imminent blossom-drift. ”

“ Elena, who seemed to feel perfectly at home, left her resting and went down stairs for their supper. She had made no mistake in saying that it would be a good supper. An hour later, the shadows had lost their gold, and Tacita was asleep.
How sweet is the deep sleep of weariness that hopes and trusts! It is not alone that every nerve and muscle lets slip a burden, that the heart gives a thankful sigh, and the busy brain grows quiet. The pleasure is more than negative. Such sleep comes as the tide comes in calm weather. ”

“ That song dispelled all fear, and life grew sweet again:—life to be helpful, joyful, and patient in; life in which to search out the harmony and worth of life;—life to grow old in and wait after work well done;—life to feel life slip away, and to catch dim glimpses and feel blind intuitions, in the midst of creeping shadows, of a sure soul-rise in some other sphere!
As they went down, Tacita heard a whisper from Elena close to her cheek: “‘Dig for your gold, my children, says Earth, your Mother. ”

“ Besides, I will confess that when human affection comes too near, and becomes personal, I feel a sense of recoil. Human evil and sorrow I do not shrink from; but human love”—
Tacita moved backward a step, and clouded over.
“Not so!” Dylar exclaimed. “It is precisely because your friendship is as delicate as a mist that I seek you, that I follow you. See that white cloud on the pine-tree yonder! It is like you. The tree-top, the topmost tree-top has caught and tries to hold it. ”

“ The face was of a somewhat full oval, olive-tinted, with heavy black hair drawn back from the temples, a delicate rose-color in the cheeks, and sweet red lips. The large dark eyes looked straight out with a lofty and thoughtful expression. The whole figure was instinct with a fine animal life, such life as sustains a strong soul full of feeling and intelligence. All the curves of the face were tender; but they were contradicted by an assumption of reserve almost too severe for beauty. It was the picture of a loving nature that had renounced love.
“That is our Iona,” Elena said. ”

“ They passed under the arch, and in at the lower door of the cemetery. All the doors from top to bottom were open, and the lamps shed a dim radiance through the long, hushed corridors of the dead; but their flames caught a tremor as the breathing multitude went by, two by two.
They ascended inside, by ways that seemed a labyrinth, to the upper tier just under the grassy hollow of Basil’s Rest. Issuing there, they descended by the outer stairs, filling all the galleries on the eastern side of the mountain. ”

“ There were still mountains in a rugged magnificence of mass and outline; but the color left no room for disappointment. They faced the west with the kindled torch of a snow-peak above a tumult of gold and purple and deep-red. There were pines along the lower heights, and olives, and, lower still, fruit-trees. A rock protruding close to either side of the window narrowed the lower view. But only a few rods distant, a wedge of smooth green turf was visible, with a crowd of gayly-dressed children playing on it, tossing grace-hoops, chasing each other, and dancing. ”

“ When she should crown herself with the white betrothal roses that must be gathered by her own hand, it would be with the thought of authority wearing the crown of pure justice. When she should assume the rose-colored robe and veil of a bride, it would be to her a figure of that charity all over the world which it would be the aim of her life to promote. Both she and Dylar would be stronger for this companionship; and she would be, not only his inspirer, but his soothing and comforting friend also. Every lion in his path should become his beehive. ”

“ Here were long vistas of vaults supported on piers of masonry, tracts of thick wall, both long and short, sometimes taking the place of pillars and arches. There were glistening rows of wine-hogsheads diminishing in the darkness; and shelves of jars gave a familiar domestic look to the place.
Dylar pointed out how cunningly the stair from the cave below was hidden. It was set between two walls that ran together like a wedge, a wall starting off diagonally from the point where they met, and pillars and arches so confusing the outlines that the wedge-shape could not be suspected. ”

“ Her fancy descended from its cold mountain height to a green hollow in the hills, and a cooing of doves, and a veil of heliotrope shutting them in. She hung over the face of the child. His cradle should be formed like a lotos-flower, and there he should sit enthroned like Horus, the young Day. As her fancy dwelt on him, he grew,—a youth with inspiration shining in his eyes, a man, with command on his brow. He should bring in a golden age. Peace and brotherly love prevailing should make men look upon their past lives as the lives of wolves. ”

“ It is like a plank to the shipwrecked.
Such to her was Iona’s resolution to go to the Basilica and watch all night. Christ had said “Come!” and she would go as near to him as she knew how. The sense of blind obedience was restful. She looked across the town, and a certain peacefulness seemed to hover over the white building beyond the river. She thought herself like that river, flowing in silent shadow now after a wild rush from height to depth, and through dark and stormy ways.
There was no assembly that evening, and the avenue and square were unlighted. ”

“ For the work needed to-day, the soul must not stop to think, but must march straight on in the name of God. I will think of my coming back and of my rest at last. It is sweet. Carry me up at sunrise, and give me a rose in my hand. I would that I could have a palm. But a rose is the flower of love; and whether it has seemed so, or not, I have loved so much! I have loved so much!”
She bent, and softly kissed the sleeping infant; and rising to go away, glanced back toward the unseen cemetery. ”

“ All around rose the mountain wall, lined with hills, gentle, or abrupt; and, inundating all, a flood of verdure was thrown up on every side, like the waves of a sea. The ragged edges of the plain were heavy with wheat, rice and corn; higher up 82were orchards, vineyards, and terraced gardens, and a smoke of olives curling about everywhere, and groves of trees crowded into sunny hollows, and wedges of pines thrust upward, diminishing till the last tree stood alone beneath a gigantic cornice-rim of rock, snow and ice,—
“Where the olive dare not venture,
And the pine-tree’s courage fails.” ”

“ These to a people who made health and strength a virtue were her most effective antidote against any allurements of that larger life that held such perils.
“It is worse than I thought, my friends,” she said to Tacita and Dylar. “Perhaps the world never was any better; but it is worse than I thought. It is not so much the wickedness of the smaller number, but the carelessness of the majority. Nothing but a calamity stirs them up. Nothing but a danger to themselves sets them thinking of others. The prosperous seem really to believe that prosperity is a virtue and misfortune a vice. ”

“ Elena asked the next morning when Tacita woke.
“I am prepared for anything! I have had such a refreshing sleep! How long has it been?”
“Nearly twelve hours, my dear. Your ancestors must have come from Ephesus. I thought that I knew how to sleep; but the singleness of purpose with which you lay yourself away is something entirely your own. It is a gift. It arrives at genius. Now, who do you think that I can see coming over a rocky path above the olives?”
“Can it be Dylar?”
“It is Dylar. He will be here in fifteen minutes.” ”

“ As he meditated then with the door of his soul wide open, it had seemed to him that all the gods and all the worships of men had gathered themselves before him, and mingled, as mists gather into a cloud, and that from turbulent they had grown still, and from dark they had gathered to themselves light, growing more golden in the centre, as though their divers elements were purifying themselves to form some new unity, till the crude and useless all melted away, parting to disclose an infant seated on a lotos-flower, and shining like the morning sun. ”

“ I am drawn by chains. I have a thousand words of love to say to you. How can I wait a week to say them! I have been whispering them across the dark to you. How you came to me to-day, my own! I know just how many steps you took, and I shall set a white stone in place of the gray one where you stopped.
Dylar.” She found pencil and paper, and aided by the same fitful lamp wrote her answer.
“My Love, like you I could not sleep nor rest. You have made me happy. I have only a glow-worm to read and write by. Sleep now, and love your
Tacita.” ”

“ Your fortune, my Tacita, will be a heaven’s dew to such. For your largess will be given only to the silent, who ask not. I do not know the world as well as many of our people do; but those who have had most experience say that the almost universal motto acted on, if not confessed, is the saying of Cain: ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ Now, I wish to have as my motto that I am my brother’s keeper whenever and wherever one has need of me. ”

“ For some reason the first step on the greensward under those gray-green branches awakened her sleeping passion. Was it grief that the peacefulness of the scene knocked in vain at her heart for entrance? She would willingly have thrown herself down in those quiet shadows and wept. The strong check she drew on the impulse brought up its contrary, and she laughed lightly.
There was no one in the great circular ground-room of the tower, nor on the grand stairs where a man might ride up and down on horseback; but reaching the top, she was met by the housekeeper. ”

“ Yet, reserved and incisive as the look was, something of sweetness might be discerned in the man’s face.
Tacita, half turned to go away, remained gazing at that face, fascinated. What a fine strength and purity! What reserve and what firmness! It was a face that could flash like a storm-cloud. Would anything ever make such a man fear, or be weak, careless, or cruel?
Elena came and stood by her, but said nothing.
47“Behold a man,” said Tacita, “whom I would follow through the world, and out of the world!” ”

“ He might have been taken for an artisan who examined intelligently, but without enthusiasm, to see how the work was done. A closer view of his luminous dark eyes revealed a second expression, something mystical and exalted, as though he looked through the object his glance touched, and saw, not only the workman who had wrought it, but his mind and intention.
He made one slow circuit of the church, uttering not a word till he went up stairs and looked at the Judas hanging to a tree, the fresco half hidden in a corner of the gallery. ”

“ It does not know what beautiful thing it is building there, all flowers and fruit and rustling music. It crawls and gathers with the worm and the ant, obedient to the law of its being, and draws sweetness out of corruption, and clasps a rock for a friend.
“Master, I could not be content to think that there is no more than this visible tree to reward such labor, and that anything so beautiful as the tree should be meant only to please the eye, gratify the palate, and then return to chaos. ”

“ Tacita’s mind, floating between present contentment, a half-forgotten pain, and a mystical anticipation, confused the scene about her with others far away. Clustered windows, crowded sculptures and balconies, seemed to emboss the cliffs at either hand, or float in misty lines along their surfaces. The sound of the haunting cascade became the dip of oars, or the swash of the lagoon ploughed by a steamboat. She saw their time-stained old Venetian house; and the last scenes she had witnessed there rose before her. ”

“ Let not your minds be swept away by the swift currents everywhere rushing they know not whither, all human society rising in great waves on some tidal throe which may land it on a higher plane, or may cast it into the abyss, one leader with a blazing torch striving in the name of Liberty to shut the gate of heaven, and the other, his unconscious accomplice, in the name of Order, setting wide the gates of hell. ”

“ Even we who know those heights from infancy can scarce be certain what is rock and what is mist in all those outlines. A cliff runs up in shadow, and masses of frowning vapors catch and carry its profile almost 273to the zenith. There is a rounded mountain where the snow never lingered; and a pile of snowy cumuli has settled on its grayness, and sharpened itself to a fairy pinnacle to mock our ice-peaks, and sifted its white drifts into crevices downward, and set its alabaster buttresses to confuse our knowledge of the old familiar height. ”